Interest Groups Quotes

Senator Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man who can do great things for our country in the years ahead. But my friends, eloquence is no substitute for a record - not in these tough times for America. In the Senate he has not reached across party lines to get anything significant done, nor has he been willing to take on powerful interest groups in the Democratic Party. ~ Joe Lieberman

I think that the best approach would be if the American people ever insist that we cut down on the massive amounts of money that moves into the campaigns from special interest groups, and if we resist publicly by saying "No more negative advertisements that destroy the reputations of one's opponents." In the meantime, just don't pay any attention to negative ads, if you can avoid them, and try to focus on the issues. ~ Jimmy Carter

Chief Justice Warren Burger, a conservative appointed by Richard Nixon, described the new interpretation of the Second Amendment in an interview after his tenure as 'one of the greatest pieces of fraud-I repeat the word FRAUD-on the American public by special-interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. ~ Fareed Zakaria

I think growing up in a small town is a good foundation for anyone who decides to enter politics. You get to know people as individuals, not as blocs or members of special interest groups. ~ Ronald Reagan

I'm not sure I want to sound like a candidate. I just want to sound like an American who's trying to make this country a heck of a lot stronger, not a (typical) politician ... but somebody that's going to go in, do the job, not pay attention to all the special interest groups, change the status quo, shift power out of Washington and get America on the track again with strength in our military as well. ~ John Kasich

Through sites like MySpace, people coalesce into interest groups, and this gives me the opportunity to do vast mailshots to people who like similar things. ~ Martin Millar

Much of what candidates have to do is raise money and appeal to constituencies or interest groups that can provide that money. ~ Robert Scheer

I have always felt that public, commercial and community organisations should be as open as possible about their affairs. They need to be accountable to their owners, their customers, their members and communities and other interest groups. ~ Laisenia Qarase

I want to be able to say what's on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I'm sort of done with that. ~ Laura Schlessinger

The money that is spent in elections is absolutely unconscionable - even if it's private money. It's true that one's not corrupted by the expenditure of one's own money, but to some extent the system is. We cannot have a system in which the only people you can count on for a vote that doesn't look as though it might be a vote for a special-interest group are people with enormous fortunes. ~ Millicent Fenwick

My good friend Walter Mondale is a good lapdog. He'll give them [special interest groups] everything they want. He'll lick every hand. ~ Ernest Hollings

I'm sorry I'm not gay or Jewish, so I don't have a special interest group of journalists that support me. ~ Vincent Gallo

Bulgaria has been deindustrialized by interest groups who extracted state assets like oil states extract the oil in their ground. ~ Ivan Krastev

But politicians who talk about failed policies are just blowing smoke. Government policies succeed in doing exactly what they are supposed to do: channeling resources bilked from the general public to politically organized and influential interests groups. ~ Robert Higgs

Is Christianity just another special-interest group, clawing for political power? Or, even if Christians are acting as God's spokesmen, must Christians always conduct themselves politically as if Christianity were just another special-interest group? Do Christians conduct evangelism this way?. ~ Gary North

Government cannot be all things to all people. ~ Jane D. Hull

The timing & characteristics of state intervention affect not only organizational tactics and strategies, but the content and definition of interest itself ... Some scholars have directly stressed that state interventions create corporatist forms ... the formation, let alone the political capabilities, of such purely socioeconomic phenomena as interest groups and classes depends in significant measure on the structures and activities of the very states the social actors, in turn, seek to influence. ~ Theda Skocpol

If zero percent of the elites support something, very low chance it's going to pass, if 100% support something, very high chance it's going to pass. Same thing for organized interest groups. But for the average voter, it's a flat line. Which says it doesn't matter whether zero percent of the public believes something or 100% of the average voters believe something - it doesn't affect the probability that that thing will be enacted. ~ Lawrence Lessig

There is an abundance of misinformation, exaggeration, and blatant lies being spread by interest groups regarding the prospects for embryonic stem cell research. ~ Virginia Foxx

Ever since 1945 the federal government has held and indeed increased its importance as the first customer of the American economy. Government spending had been the primary economic stimulant and to increase it had been the goal of hundreds of interest groups; hopes of balanced budgets and cheap, business-like administration always ran aground upon this fact. What was more, the United States was a democracy; whatever the doctrinaire objections to it, and however much rhetoric might be devoted to attacking it, a welfare state slowly advanced because voters wanted it that way. These facts gradually made the old ideal of totally free enterprise, unchecked and uninvaded by the influence of government, unreal. ~ J.M. Roberts

Teacher unions are an interest group that acts in defense of their own interests, which means the union bosses' interests, not the members. ~ Peter Brimelow

We hear much of special interest groups. Well, our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we're sick - professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. They are, in short, "We the people," this breed called Americans. ~ Ronald Reagan

I've owned a business for 26 years. My family isn't in politics and my supporters aren't special interest groups in Madison and Milwaukee. ~ Mark Neumann

I'm not a caterer. I just have to stay with my creative convictions. At some point, you have to just get past the special-interest groups and do what you're there to do, which is make a movie. ~ Ron Howard

I'm sometimes asked why it is that for 30 years we seem to have trouble in the United States enforcing the rules against illegal immigration, and I'll tell you what the answer is. The answer is that when the television cameras turn off and the spotlight moves to something else, there are a host of interest groups and advocacy groups who work very, very hard to make it difficult to enforce these rules. I'm not commenting adversely on their motivation, but I can tell you the effect of all of this is to wear down the ability of an agency to enforce the law ... ~ Michael Chertoff

Reciprocal altruism, meanwhile, is rampant in Washington and is the primary channel through which interest groups have succeeded in corrupting government. As the legal scholar Lawrence Lessig points out, interest groups are able to influence members of Congress legally simply by making donations and waiting for unspecified return favors. And sometimes, the legislator is the one initiating the gift exchange, favoring an interest group in the expectation that he will get some sort of benefit from it after leaving office. ~ Anonymous

frustration has flared up over the Common Core initiative, involving the implementation of national reading and maths standards for primary and secondary school children. The Gates Foundation played a central role in bringing the standards to fruition. Spending over $233 million to back the standards, the foundation dispersed money liberally to both conservative and progressive interest groups. The two major teachers' unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, each received large donations, as did the US Chamber of Commerce. Gates himself suggested that a benefit of the standards is that they open avenues towards increasing digital learning. In 2014, Microsoft announced it was partnering with Pearson to load Pearson's Common Core classroom material onto Microsoft's Surface tablet. Previously, the iPad was the classroom frontrunner; the Pearson partnership helps to make Microsoft more competitive. ~ Linsey McGoey

It was clear that the special interest groups in California really wanted the Chinese to be shut out of the country, because that was where the racial tension was the greatest. ~ Iris Chang

In U.S. politics, 'compassion' means giving money and privileges to well organized interest groups at everyone else's expense. ~ Paul Craig Roberts

Interest groups are not the same as individuals. Through false nostalgia for the New Deal, you are taking the younger generation hostage. They are the ones who are going to have to pay far greater taxes. They are the future's forgotten men. ~ Amity Shlaes

What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you ~ Tony Benn

The problem is, of course, that these interest groups are all asking for changes, but their enthusiasm for change rapidly disappears when it affects the core of their own interests. ~ Angela Merkel

Tolerance has come to mean that no one is right and no one is wrong and, indeed, the very act of stating that someone else's views are immoral or incorrect is now taken to be intolerant (of course, from this same point of view, it is all right to be intolerant of those who hold to objectively true moral or religious positions). Once the existence of knowable truth in religion and ethics is denied, authority (the right to be believed and obeyed) gives way to power (the ability to force compliance), reason gives way to rhetoric, the speech writer is replaced by the makeup man, and spirited but civil debate in the culture wars is replaced by politically correct special-interest groups who have nothing left but political coercion to enforce their views on others. ~ J.P. Moreland

There are many people who enjoy animal based foods and who have no interest in changing the way they eat. And as you correctly pointed out, animal products are an integral part of some ethnic groups and societies and it would be nearly impossible for them to change thousands of years of traditional eating habits. ~ Gary Player

The Democratic Party had failed (in 1983)
'to remember waht got us this far and how we got here
moral indignation, decent instincts, a sense of shared sacrifice and mutual responsibility, and a set of national priorities that emphasized what we had in common.. The Party that was the engine of the national interest
molding our pluralistic interest into a compelling new social contract that served the nation well for fifty years
became perceived as little more than the broker of narrow special interests. Instead of thinking of ourselves as Americans first, Democrats second, and members of interest groups third, we have begun to think in terms of special interests first and the greater interest second.. We have let our opponents set the agenda and define what is at stake.
p. 140 ~ Joe Biden

Madison's experience at both the state and the federal level had convinced him that "the people" was not some benevolent, harmonious collective but rather a smoldering and ever-shifting gathering of factions or interest groups committed to provincial perspectives and vulnerable to demagogues with partisan agendas. ~ Joseph J. Ellis

Political scientists after World War II hypothesized that even though the voices of individual Americans counted for little, most people belonged to a variety of interest groups and membership organizations - clubs, associations, political parties, unions - to which politicians were responsive. ~ Robert Reich

James Madison made clear in Federalist 51 that that this elaborate structure - today often derided as " gridlock " - was created to protect individual freedom against oppression by the majority or by powerful interest groups who exploit government power for their own purposes. ~ Anonymous

We plan to pick up another five seats in the Senate and hold the House through redistricting through 2012. And rather than negotiate with the teachers' unions and the trial lawyers and the various leftist interest groups, we intend to break them. ~ Grover Norquist

Calgene's FlavrSavr tomato was the first genetically modified whole food. When Calgene brought it to the FDA in 1992, the tomato was subjected to $2 million-worth of testing by the FDA on top of the testing done by Calgene. In a public meeting the FDA scientists brought the results of their extensive and sophisticated chemical analyses to a panel of external advisers; the panel included representatives of public interest groups and industry, as well as scientists whose specialties ranged from nutrition to basic plant science. The concluding slide of the FDA's presentation had a simple message: Calgene's transgenic tomato … is a tomato.

Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist's View of Genetically Modified Food ~ Fedoroff, Nina V.; Brown, Nancy Marie

Now listen to the first three aims of the corporatist movement in Germany, Italy and France during the 1920s. These were developed by the people who went on to become part of the Fascist experience:
(1) shift power directly to economic and social interest groups;
(2) push entrepreneurial initiative in areas normally reserved for public bodies;
(3) obliterate the boundaries between public and private interest
that is, challenge the idea of the public interest.
This sounds like the official program of most contemporary Western governments. ~ John Ralston Saul

Politicians will pander to special-interest groups eager to gain at the public expense. ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

Campaign finance and ethics reform only works if it curtails all special interest groups equally and does not carve out any exceptions to benefit one party or another. 'Pay to play' reform was passed to limit the influence of big spending contractors over the public officials from whom they are trying to obtain work. ~ Thomas Kean, Jr.

Pull in Friendships and Fresh Adventures: Five men are walking across the Golden Gate Bridge on an outing organized by their wives who are college friends. The women move ahead in animated conversation. One man describes the engineering involved in the bridge's long suspension. Another points to the changing tide lines below. A third asked if they've heard of the new phone apps for walking tours. The fourth observes how refreshing it is to talk with people who aren't lawyers like him.

Yes, we tend to notice the details that most relate to our work or our life experience.

It is also no surprise that we instinctively look for those who share our interests. This is especially true in times of increasing pressure and uncertainty. We have an understandable tendency in such times to seek out the familiar and comfortable as a buffer against the disruptive changes surrounding us. In so doing we can inadvertently put ourselves in a cage of similarity that narrows our peripheral vision of the world and our options. The result? We can be blindsided by events and trends coming at us from directions we did not see. The more we see reinforcing evidence that we are right in our beliefs the more rigid we become in defending them. Hint: If you are part of a large association, synagogue, civic group or special interest club, encourage the organization to support the creation of self-organized, special interest groups of no more than seven people, providing a few suggestio ~ Kare Anderson

Once a bureau is created, its staff becomes a tenacious political interest group, well placed to defend its budget and to make a case for expanding its activities. ~ Robert Higgs

Storytelling may be what most distinguishes social movements from interest groups. ~ Marshall Ganz

My own views on abortion, I'm not on either pole of that and neither of the interest groups on either end of this issue would probably be comfortable with my views. ~ Stephen Harper

Politicians pay more attention to interest groups than to the public interest. ~ Alice Rivlin

You can't be all things to all people. ~ Michael Porter

Although Herbert Hoover in many ways prefigured him, it was Franklin D. Roosevelt who first tried to create an explicit corporate state in America with his National Recovery Administration (NRA). With its fascist-style Blue Eagle emblem, the NRA coordinated big business and labor in a central plan, and outlawed competition. The NRA even employed vigilante groups to spy on smaller businesses and report if they violated the plan. Just as in Mussolini's Italy, the beneficiaries of the U.S. corporate state were - in addition to the government itself - established economic interest groups. NRA cheerleaders included the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Bar Association, the United Mine Workers, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and - above all - Gerard Swope of General Electric, who helped draft the NRA act. Only ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Obama, startled that components of government behave as interest groups, seems utterly unfamiliar with public choice theory. It demystifies and de-romanticizes politics by applying economic analysis - how incentives influence behavior - to government. ~ George Will

To be fair, lying is part and parcel of public life. Every politician has lied about something because they are owned by the special interest groups that finance their elections. ~ Peter Schuyler

The reality is that the special interest groups that have lobbied against Free Choice Vouchers object to any measure that would empower employees to have a say in their health benefits because it begins to erode their power in the current health care system. ~ Ron Wyden

What is happening to teachers now across this nation is a disgrace. The attacks on them are a blot on our nation. Teachers and students are not different interest groups. Anyone who demeans teachers demeans education and hurts children. ~ Diane Ravitch

If you look at all the lobbyists in Washington, this is not a democracy. This is ruled by special interest groups. That includes the military, the pharmaceutical industry, the people who produce mechanized debt, GMO foods. We are prisoners. ~ Deepak Chopra

The United Nations has come under the control of outlaw nations and self-serving special interest groups. ~ Ginny Brown-Waite

Career politicians do not have the courage to prioritize spending and say no to demanding special interest groups who do not reflect the best interests of the country. ~ Tom Coburn

You know the way Washington works. Once you start floating ideas, they are immediately attacked by all the different interest groups before the ideas can be brought to fruition. ~ Judd Gregg

The U.S. Senate does not allow legislative provisions to be included in appropriations bills, for much the same reason that most Americans are concerned about earmarks: it creates a slippery slope by which lobbyists and special interest groups can sneak provisions into large, must-pass legislation. ~ Ron Wyden

Most major Christian groups - Catholics, Byzantines, Nestorians, Jacobites - believe Mary's father was a man named Joachim. But this is contested. The Koran claims she descended from a highly respected family, that of Imran. As does the Jewish faith. ~ James Rollins

Formation of a new race takes place when, over several generations, individuals in one group reproduce more frequently among themselves than they do with individuals in other groups. ~ J. Philippe Rushton

There are times I think of us all and I wish we were back in second grade. Not really that young. But I wish it felt like second grade. I'm not saying everyone was friends back then. But we all got along. There were groups, but they didn't really divide. At the end of the day, your class was your class, and you felt like you were a part of it. You had your friends and you had the other kids, but you didn't really hate anyone longer than a couple of hours. Everybody got a birthday card. In second grade, we were all in it together. Now we're all apart. ~ David Levithan

Nonetheless, a question remains before us all the same: what is a novelist to do with ordinary, completely "usual" people, and how can he present them to the reader so as to make them at least somewhat interesting? To bypass them altogether in a story is quite impossible, because ordinary people are constantly and for the most part the necessary links in the chain of everyday events; in bypassing them we would thus violate plausibility. To fill novels with nothing but types or even simply, for the sake of interest, with strange and nonexistent people, would be implausible
and perhaps uninteresting as well. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I should like to begin with a philosophical comment. I do not think that when one is speaking of hardships or benefits one can reasonably speak in terms of classes or social groups but only in terms of individuals. ~ John James Cowperthwaite

Providing all Latin-American children with the education and early childhood development that they need is in the best interest of all, so it has to be a priority for all of us, not only the government and civil society, but also the business sector. ~ Shakira

Some religions actually go so far as to label anyone who belongs to a religious sect other than their own a heretic, even though the overall doctrines and impressions of godliness are nearly the same. For example: The Catholics believe the Protestants are doomed to Hell simply because they do not belong to the Catholic Church. In the same way, many splinter groups of the Christian faith, such as the evangelical or revivalist churches, believe the Catholics worship graven images. (Christ is depicted in the image that is most physiologically akin to the individual worshipping him, and yet the Christians criticize "heathens" for the worship of graven images.) And the Jews have always been given the Devil's name. ~ Anton Szandor LaVey

All my works have vessels of some sort. Containers. Sometimes it's in the negative space, sometimes it's more obvious ...
He's very loyal. He puts everything he has into one thing. one interest, one hobby, one friend, one love. I'm his love and it scares the shit out of me ... He's poured all his love into me. I'm his vessel. But suppose I crack? Suppose I break? Suppose I die? What would he do? ~ Louise Penny

A strong currency means that American consumers and businesses can buy imported goods and services more cheaply and that inflation and interest rates will be lower, ... It also puts pressure on American industry to increase productivity and competitiveness. These benefits can feed on themselves as foreign capital flows in more readily because of greater confidence in our currency. A weak dollar would have the contrary effects. ~ Robert Rubin

The responsibility of the artist consists in perfecting his work so that it may become attractively disinteresting. ~ John Cage

I try not to put anything political on the forefront of what I'm trying to do creatively. At the same time, I do think it's wonderful when I hear people say that it's inspirational that I'm an Indian woman on camera. My life is very diverse, and my friends are a diverse group of people. ~ Mindy Kaling

Democracy in Iraq will be an example that the Arab population will look to with great interest. And some Arab governments are concerned about democracy in Iraq, not because Iraq will be an aggressive state against them, but rather by the example that will be set by a successful federal democratic state in Iraq. ~ Ahmed Chalabi

Eurobonds are absolutely wrong. In order to bring about common interest rates, you need similar competitiveness levels, similar budget situations. You don't get them by collectivizing debts. ~ Angela Merkel

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lo ~ Carl Sagan

The Protestants of old go to work not just for the money, their biggest motivation for work is service to God and man. Not the interest to gain profit or make money. ~ Sunday Adelaja

I peeled his fingers from my lips. "That was unnecessary." I said. "I was only surprised at your statement, after you have consistently disclaimed any interest in the matter. In fact, I too have discovered the identity of the person in question." "Oh, you have, have you?" "Yes, I have." We studied one another warily. "Would you care to enlighten me?" Emerson inquired. "No. I think I know; but if I am wrong you will never let me hear the end of it. Perhaps you will enlighten me." "No." "Ha! You are not sure either." "I said as much." Again we exchanged measuring glances. "You have no proof," I said. "That is the difficulty. And you - " "Not ~ Elizabeth Peters

In 2009, UnitedHealth, a leading insurance company, paid $350 million to settle lawsuits brought by the American Medical Association and other physician groups for shortchanging consumers and physicians for medical services outside its preferred network. ~ Bernie Sanders

Her way of being religious was as nonconformist as her nonreligious life had been. She was skeptical about many of the practices of the institutional church. She preferred to trust in the personal relationship she had grown to experience with God. This relationship transformed her ability to be in community and enabled her to see the essence of those around her: "The longer I live, the more I see God at work in people who don't have the slightest interest in religion and never read the Bible and wouldn't know what to do if they were persuaded to go inside a church."

For Dorothy [Day], the bread broken at Mass wasn't any more holy than the bread broken at shelters and soup kitchens. Church didn't happen in a building. It happened in the way people related to each other. Christ wasn't any more present in the liturgy than he was when on person listened with compassion to the pain of another. ~ Helen LaKelly Hunt

I was a hotshot as a junior. When I was 18, I really got into fiddling around. I completely lost interest in golf, and I guess all I could think about was going to college, getting married and having babies. ~ Hollis Stacy

Whenever you take a step forward, you are bound to disturb something. ~ Indira Gandhi

If societies are going to elevate women to equality with men - and declare that people of any race or religion have the same rights as anyone else - then we have to have men and women and every racial and religious group together writing the code. … Diversity is the best way to defend equality. If people from diverse groups are not making those decisions, the burdens and benefits of society will be divided unequally and unfairly - with the people writing the rules ensuring themselves a greater share of the benefits and a lesser share of the burdens of any society. … That's why we have to include everyone in the decisions that shape our cultures, because even the best of us are blinded by our own interests. If you care about equality, you have to embrace diversity - ~ Melinda Gates

We're all adolescents now," writes Thomas Bergler. "When are we going to grow up?"17 Bergler explains that churches and parachurch organizations first began to provide youth-oriented programs - mainly to help at-risk kids in the cities (e.g., the YMCA). Then the "teenager" was invented as a unique demographic in society. As a result, the youth group was created, offering adolescent-friendly versions of church. "In the second stage, a new adulthood emerged that looked a lot like the old adolescence. Fewer and fewer people outgrew the adolescent Christian spiritualities they had learned in youth groups; instead, churches began to cater to them." Eventually, churches became them. ~ Michael S. Horton

Citizenship is more than an individual exchange of freedoms for rights; it is also membership in a body politic, a nation, and a community. To be deemed fair, a system must offer its citizens equal opportunities for public recognition, and groups cannot systematically suffer from misrecognition in the form of stereotype and stigma. ~ Melissa V. Harris-Perry

People don't make decisions within these sorts of groups. They try to avoid more torture. Then they are tortured into thinking they made a decision of their own free will. ~ Wendy Hoffman

My collections are a reflection of my personal style and interests. All the textiles, fabrics and patterns are of my personal choice. ~ Ashley Purdy

I think we're going to enter a phase where there's less interest in the CGI and there's a demand for story again. I think we've dropped the ball a little bit on stories for the sake of the amazing toys that we've played with. ~ Peter Jackson

Skating has always been a major area of interest to me. ~ Sasha Cohen

A knowledge and appreciation of history is difficult for a culture so enthralled by the moment, a culture that shuns the discipline of a larger context in any study. Unfortunately this loss of historical interest has made the present difficult to address because the context of the past is imperative if we are to salvage the future. ~ Ravi Zacharias

I think there's too much emphasis placed on learning things by rote that you don't really care about. So what happens to students in school is that they eventually lose interest in learning, because they've been forced to learn the required courses, rather than pursing their passion. ~ Jack Canfield

The investigation into the possible effects of cosmic rays on living organisms will also offer great interest. ~ Victor Francis Hess

In the middle of the night, through the whole of the rest of the summer and beneath the autumn, one could see strange convoys of trams without passengers proceeding down the front, rattling along above the sea. Eventually, the people discovered what was going on; and despite patrols preventing anyone from reaching the promenade, some groups did quite often manage to get among the rocks right above the sea and throw flowers into the carriages as soon as the trams went past. One could hear the vehicles still bumping along on a summer's night, laden with flowers and corpses. ~ Albert Camus

I was the person, I think, who first said the evening of September 11 that we shouldn't hold this against the Arab community, the Muslim community. We should focus on the individuals and that groups that were involved and not participate in group blame. ~ Rudy Giuliani

I would go to sketch groups and draw. I really enjoyed the subject matter, but I wasn't good at it. ~ Jack Prelutsky

The more we progress the more we tend to progress. We advance not in arithmetical but in geometrical progression. We draw compound interest on the whole capital of knowledge and virtue which has been accumulated since the dawning of time. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

I think I have a sense right in the beginning of how big an idea it is and how much room it needs, and, almost more importantly, how long it would sustain anybody's interest. ~ Lydia Davis

Man is only a moral being because he lives in society, since morality consists in solidarity with the group, and varies according to that solidarity. Cause all social life to vanish, and moral life would vanish at the same time, having no object to cling to. ~ Emile Durkheim

The government doesn't really prosecute for polygamy anymore, but a lot of the arrests are of groups supporting themselves through welfare scams or for child abuse. So that was all I'd really heard about polygamists. ~ Jeanne Tripplehorn

In my garden I spend my days; in my library I spend my nights. ~ Alexander Smith

Then in the interest of full honesty, I really wish you'd kiss me right now. ~ Ann Aguirre

Both my mother and I have close groups of friends that include other writers, and these friendships are very important to us. ~ Meg Wolitzer

If a man carries his horse out of a slave State into a free one, be does not lose his property interest in him; but if he carries his slave into a free State, the law makes him free. ~ Benjamin F. Wade